PERSONNEL
Statutory negotiations at Nokian Heavy Tyres were concluded on December 19 with the company taking the decision to lay off a number of employees for approximately six months. Nokian cites the decreased demand for heavy tyres demand caused by the financial crisis and a subsequent reduction in production, as the reason behind the lay-offs.
The statutory negotiations at Nokian Heavy Tyres ended on the 19th of December, 2008 with the decision to lay off the employees for approximately six months. The reason for the lay-offs is the decreased heavy tyre demand caused by the financial crisis, which has created the need to reduce production in line with the lower demand.
The decision concerns some 280 employees and all personnel groups at Nokian Heavy Tyres. Depending on the job, the lay-offs will last from 10 to 100 days, which corresponds to the lay-off of around 90 employees for six months. The majority of lay-offs will be carried out from January to June 2009. Part of the adjustment needs will be executed by pension arrangements. The walkout of Nokian Heavy Tyres production personnel which started on Thursday, December 18, 2008 ended on December 19, 2008 at 10.30 a.m.
At midday on December 18, production personnel at Nokian’s heavy tyres factory in Nokia, Finland, walked out to protest against the company’s plans to adjust production capacity. According to an employees’ announcement, the workout will last until 10pm on Friday, December 19. Nokian adds that statutory negotiations regarding the adjustment measures are continuing and will end on Monday, December 22, 2008.
According to a previous announcement, Nokian Heavy Tyres is considering laying off some 100 employees for approximately 7-8 months as of January 2009.
Firestone Liberia celebrated on December 12 the official reopening of the Firestone Medical Center at Duside, in the city of Harbel, as an inpatient facility. Several VIP guests attended the one-hour ceremony to commemorate this milestone, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and US Ambassador to Liberia Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
According to Bridgestone, the hospital was severely damaged during Liberia’s 14-year civil war and all of its medical equipment was either stolen or destroyed. The company adds that rebuilding and reopening of the hospital represents the fulfilment of one of Firestone Liberia’s commitments to the nation of Liberia under its investment agreement with the country.
Nokian Tyres has today begun new statutory negotiations in order to adjust operations and to cut personnel by approximately 450 people at its Nokia factory in Finland, due to the decreased demand for tyres. The agenda of the negotiations includes a plan to change the working model of the car tyre production from the current continuous three-shift/seven days work to the discontinued three-shift/five days operations and to re-organise operations. This would result in the annual production capacity at the Nokia factory to fall from the current 6 million or so tyres to around 4.5 million tyres in 2009.
The discontinued three-shift work and the re-organisation measures would create a need to cut personnel by some 450 people, of which approximately 100 would be white-collar personnel. The aim is to carry out part of the personnel cuts by pension arrangements and other voluntary solutions.
The new factory working model and re-organisations would reduce Nokian Tyres’ costs in Nokia by around 30 million euros.
In Canada, Michelin says it is placing an emphasis on employing Nova Scotians of African origin. According to Nova Scotia based newspaper The News, the manufacturer made this pledge on November 24 in partnership with the African Nova Scotian Partnership network and the provincial government. As part of the agreement, Michelin will share information on its hiring process with African Nova Scotian career centres across the province, where job opportunities are posted.
The statutory negotiations concerning the lay-offs of the Nokian Tyres employees at the Nokia factory in Finland ended on the 19th November, 2008. The company decided after the negotiations to lay off its personnel for 10 days and the majority of the employees will be laid off between 21.12.2008 and 11.1.2009.
The Cumberland News reported today that the boss at Pirelli’s Carlisle plant will leave early next year to take up a position at the company’s plant near Frankfurt, Germany. Mr Carducci-Agostini has worked at the Carlisle plant for four years, spend the first three as production manager before landing the top job last year. His new position will also be heading up the Frankfurt factory.
The paper also understood that the person to take the reigns at Carlisle has been appointed, though further details were as yet unavailable. The change of personnel will not – the News understood – have any impact on operations at the facility.
Efforts on the part of Cooper Tire & Rubber to develop custom tyre solutions have resulted in a joint development agreement with Resilient Technologies, LLC to produce a prototype of a new, state-of-the-art, non-pneumatic military tyre.
The US military currently serves in numerous locales, and during its operations a growing number of army vehicles have become disabled through flat or punctured tyres, leaving occupants vulnerable to attack. To remedy this potentially lethal scenario, Resilient has been working on a bullet and shrapnel resistant non-pneumatic tyre (NPT) for more than two years.
The desire for a squeaky clean, lustrous set of tyres nearly claimed the life of a 48 year old US man on October 30. Hummer driver Merle C. Sorenson from Washington State was enjoying an evening with four buddies when the urge to ‘clean the rubber’ struck. What occurred next is, so they say, not something you should try at home.
Local news sources in Scotland have reported that Michelin has requested its 800 employees in the French giant’s Dundee plant to volunteer to take three days off. The company wants its workforce in the city to take leave on half pay over a ten day period at the end of November, so that the factory can remain in a “robust state”.
Member of Scottish Parliament, Marilyn Glen stated that, “Michelin is an important employer in Dundee and I can only hope it really is a one-off measure, and that the circumstances for production will improve when the situation is reassessed. My thoughts are with the workers and their families, who must be concerned about their futures, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Michelin has a good reputation as an employer and producer and I’m sure they will weather the economic storm. They have been trying to run down their stocks, so I can understand it.”
The sole remaining major contender for the MotoGP tyre supply contract following Michelin’s decision not to bid has been officially named. On October 18 Bridgestone was officially appointed the sole tyre supplier for the MotoGP World Championship for a three-year period starting 2009. The Japanese tyre major was the only tyre manufacturer to submit a proposal to Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and Dorna following the September announcement from FIM that MotoGP would become a single tyre make series as of next year. The specific regulations pertaining to the single tyre contract will be confirmed by FIM in ‘due course’, reports Bridgestone.
Pirelli’s sees its new industrial centre in Romania’s automotive sector as strategic for the company’s future growth in the emerging East European markets. The company’s position in Romania is now set to grow further in coming years following the announcement of new investments to the value of 250 million euros. The chairman of Pirelli & C. SpA, Marco Tronchetti Provera, made the announcement to Romanian Prime Minister, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, during a meeting held in Bucharest on September 29, at which the Group’s activities in the country were discussed.
Over the weekend two of Germany’s largest independent dealer cooperatives, point S and Team, negotiated the terms of a joint venture that will see the two companies cooperate in the local fleet business. A letter of intent relating to what one might call the “team S” joint venture was signed this morning (Monday 29 September 2008) and will take effect 1 January 2009. The 50:50 joint venture will cover the area of fleet, large-scale sales and key account business. The negotiations were led by Juergen Pischinger and Peter Lüdorf and sought to synergise the benefits of Team’s strength in the commercial vehicle tyre business and point-S’s in passenger car tyres.
Between them the two cooperatives run over 1,100 service stations across Germany and thus have broad market coverage. Details of the name and headquarters of the new joint venture and personnel consequences are not yet clear, however layoffs are not planned. Instead the company hopes to operate a European-wide service in the future.
Off-road fleets in North America wishing to use a mix of both new and retread tyres now have a one-stop, integrated service solution: Bridgestone Firestone Off Road Company (BFOR), a division of Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, has expanded its product range with the addition of retread tyres manufactured with Continuum tread rubber. Company officials announced at the MINEXPO 2008 show in Las Vegas that BFOR will assume marketing, sales and distribution responsibilities immediately for Continuum brand retread materials in the USA and Canada.
If you would like the latest news from the Chinese tyre industry in Chinese, visit our partner site TyrepressChina.com. Or click below to continue on Tyrepress.
